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Why Clients Like Goldman Sachs Believe People with Autism Strengthen Their QA Testing

QA Analyst Rider Hallenstein shares his story—from struggling to find gainful employment to being part of a high-powered QA testing team.
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I love mathematics. The best and most difficult part of my life was studying at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy for high school. After that, I studied computer science at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. I transferred to Millikin University after changing majors to reflect how I am obsessed with immortality. I wanted to study bioengineering and get on a research team to figure out how to live forever. I tend to think of things in the long term.

After college, I was living with my dad in my hometown of Woodstock, IL from 2009 to 2015 and looking for gainful employment. My older sister heard of Aspiritech. She was living in Highland Park. I applied, got an interview, and got into a weird argument about the ethics of immortality with Moshe Weitzberg. To my surprise, I was hired. I learned years later that he likes arguing with people. That was 2010. I was working part-time because the commute was 2 hours.

Independence

In 2015, I began working full-time for Aspiritech. I moved out of my dad’s house in 2019 and rented a townhouse close to work. I live with some of my co-workers. We get along really well.

Currently, I am a QA Analyst on the Goldman Sachs team. Goldman Sachs is continually rolling out new software and adding new functions and system updates. Every morning at 9:30 we have a client meeting with a bunch of people from Goldman Sachs on the other end. We go over the functions we are to test that day, what is planned for the week, and any big issues that come up. They really appreciate us and how people with autism strengthen their QA Testing. We are responsible for making sure that their end users have a great experience. I’m proud that they trust us with that responsibility.

I like when I can use my math skills. For example, this one time we had a global commercial real estate client, JLL. They wanted us to organize many hundreds of thousands of records based on location. They had latitude and longitude coordinates. I created an algorithm with mathematical coordinates, x2 + y2 + z2 = r2. r would be the radius of the earth. I compared where coordinates were close, hmm these accounts might be the same. I was able to consolidate a bunch of records that way.

Career Advancement

Aspiritech is different from other places I’ve worked because, for one, they will hire me for more money than minimum wage. For two, they make sure that we get the accommodations that we need, and three, they really care about the employees. I am working on my self-confidence right now so I can advance in my career.

Overall, working at Aspiritech is awesome. These people are great. I feel like I’ve found my community. I’ve made a lot of friends here. I imagine we’ll remain friends for decades. Bonus points if our friendships last for centuries.

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